The 2008 minor league season brought us a number of innovative promotions and fun ideas, largely thanks to Ben Hill os MILB.com, who spends the year championing th.business of minor league baseball in the U.S. like no one else. As the minor league seasons finish, we looked back to the Huntsville Stars, who took the time-honored tradition of the ceremonial first pitch and made it into a day and night long affair with a great charity angle. The Stars.set a record by having over 11,000 first pitches in a seven hour period leading up to the start of their August 26th game, and topped it off by holding an auction of the world record and final toss for the Jerry Lewis Muscular Distrophy telethon. The record broke an earlier mark of 8,000 first pitches, found a way to engage each and every possible fan in a world record promotion, got fans to experience the fun of throwing a pitch in a professional baseball stadium and raised money for a needy cause. Simple, effective, low cost, charitable and noteworthy for the media. Solid way to wrap up another solid and innovative list of season long effective and engaging promotions by some of sports top creative marketers…the minor league baseball GM's.?
Some other good reads…USA Today took a solid look at the way Disney is using Wide World of Sports to draw groups to the Magic Kingdom…Darren Rovell has a good look into the reasons and reporting that led the Jets/Giants Stadium to break their negotiations with Allianz…wsj.com has a fun profile of the “Dugout Gormet,” LA Dodger Andre Ethier…and the LA Times’ Bill Dwyre has a good profile of boxer Joel Casamayor and his unusual route to the United States.
